I must agree with a lot of your responses about how it's so much different from how they used to be, but I still found my self humming choruses and various melodies and the like, even though I wanted to hate it, I still couldn't resist. This raised my vote up higher then Unchained, and I definitely prefer their older stuff - but change has been made and deserves respect. Obviously, there is vast room for improvement, but I'll take the change, cherish the old, accept the new, and move on. There are so many bands that deserve more attention.

I still cherish the old but forget about the new. There's no way I can like that crap.

acceptance doesn't mean you have to like it, I personally love the older stuff more then the new, but I accept the change, be it for better or worse. It's not the end of the line - moving on to listening to something else.

You don't know a good thing when you have/had it. With the departure of Viekko on the drums (On what were their 3 best albums) things have changed. He was one of the best blast beat drummers I've heard....around the same time they lost the keyboardist Tero......

Another factor is they never got to breakthrough on their popularity... (a US tour that never happened could have been part of it). If they had had that backing when they needed it, they could have stayed on the same line-up longer and gone on to make more great speed/death/black metal.

Sorry to hear the change in the music style, but still, wish them all the best.

Meh...I havent even listened to this album purely because their former release was so shockingly bad. They lost their way since "Winternight Tragedies" imo, hard to believe this new album can be worse that "VIII"...

The change is obvious. Do u see the front cover...? No wolves in there...
Now they kinda change to dogs, though yet furious from time to time you can accept it or not. IMO their style fitted more properly to their composing and technical skills before, above all from 2000 to 2003 and the choruses are too much melodic now, but I normally prefer melodeath to melodic black in general. So, let's say, that their evolution is more positive than the one with other bands -at least they don't play country metal as Rockallica-